Cold

 
 
 
Poor Anthony is getting a cold. I hate it - I wish that he never got sick, I feel that he deals with enough. He is off of school this week, so say a prayer for us!

Throwing a Ball

 
 
In an outfit from my Aunt Karen - she sent very cute things for all three of the kids.

Last Day of School

 
 
Today was Anthony's last day of school. He is now bugging me for a video so that's all I'll say about it right now.

Long week, already

 
 

UPDATE: He is fine, thank God. He whacked his head on the door of the garage but the swelling went down right away, he let me put some ice on it for two seconds, and then a band aid. Poor Anthony.

Pool

 

Hoo boy, this day! I edited my last entry so that I am not swearing in it, so that my Aunt Joan doesn't get mad at me! :) It's just been rough. Maria was up at 5:30 and took two CRAPPY naps. She is in a shrieking mode, where she just yells and yells and screams for no reason. Anthony is noisy anyway, and the two of them are a) driving us mad and b) waking up the baby, who really likes to sleep. We tried to let them go outside and play in the pool but man - Anthony is very drawn to bare skin, so he keeps hugging Maria really hard against him, and knocking her down. Maria got sunscreen in her eye, and she spends most of her time outside letting all the water out of the pool. I went inside the house for TWO seconds because I was patting down Maria's eye and I came out and Anthony had put the cloth diaper pail (FULL of dirty diapers), a bag of garbage, and three balls in the pool. There was seriously not even room for him. We have to keep our kitchen chairs under the table so that Maria doesn't climb up on them and then to the desk, or her high chair, or to her death. It's a pain because if we dare take one out to sit in it, she RACES to the chair to try and get in it before you do. We are seriously losing our minds. Then, to top it off, I went out at the end of the day to bring in the diapers that I washed and Anthony and I were playing a rousing game of "Where's Anthony?" where I pretend I don't see him and then he jumps out and I say "There he is!". I went in to bring the diapers in and came out and was playing the game, so I was pretending I didn't see him, so it took me a minute to see, that he was covered in POOP. Ugh. It's like the day was determined to stink right up until the very end. Then we cleaned him up and got him in the tub and I gave him a bath and washed his hair and got him in bed. We said his prayers and I gave him a little rub down and we got his pajamas on and I covered him up and sang to him and zoom, he was asleep in five minutes and looking so teensy and sweet and calm in his bed, that he made me cry, singing "Baby Mine" to him. It is murder to go through this gamut of emotions every day with this kid! Oy! Here's to hoping tomorrow is better. And I'm sorry, Aunt Joan. :)

Dirty

 
We are having some kind of BAD day around here, I'll tell you that much.

Holland

Has everyone already seen this? I read it here and there and it's really beautiful, I think. And smart.

Holland, Written by Emily Perl Kingsley

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip – to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michelangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!" you say. "What do you mean, Holland?" I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy.

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to some horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy a new guidebook. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

The pain of that will never, ever, go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

John

 
He looks like my brother John to me, here.

Watching some Video

 
Oh that hair. I cannot believe I have a kid with hair this long but I LOVE it.

Lollipop

 
 
 
That first picture was cracking Mike and me UP.

Back

 
from school. He had a good night and a good day.

Right Before

...I left for the hospital. Forgive the red eye, I don't have my photo program.

Baby Day

 
I guess everyone was excited about the baby. I woke up before 4:00, Anthony shortly after that, and Maria at 5:30. Here they are, the last shot of them as just two. :)

Hair

 
Sigh. I know we have to cut it sometime but sometimes I think it is so cute this length. My mom thinks it is like how my little brother John used to have his hair when he was Anthony's age. A tribute, maybe!

Giant

 
 
 
Doesn't he look so big? He went to the zoo today with Mike, on a field trip with school. So it was their first time on a bus! Mike said it went fine, of course there was a lot of waiting, which Anthony hates but Mike said he just got a little antsy. He loved the penguins, which he always does, and seemed to see the zebra, and giraffe, because he said 'zebra' and 'giraffe'. All in all, I think it went much better than we thought it might, so that's good! He is in his new twin bed tonight, I'll take a picture tomorrow but he has a new 11 pound blanket and Star Wars sheets. He honestly didn't seem to notice but he looked like a teensy thing in that bed when I left him tonight.

Poor Anthony

 
He looks really put upon here, but he is not the one suffering, believe me. Not today!

Swing

 
 
 

Outside

 
 
Anthony has been sleeping wonderfully for like a week. We got him a twin bed but we are waiting for his new blanket (11 pounds!) until we put it in his room, hopefully tomorrow. I'll take pictures once we get it set up.

Mother's Day

 
 
 
"Nice to Meet You", I was telling him. He loves this Nice to Meet You Signing Time thing that we do. He goes crazy for it!

Read a Book!

 
That's what he says when he reads a book. This one is from Marita and I think it's actually Maria's but it's only fair.

Mother May I?

 
Doesn't it look like he's asking permission? To smack her? I'll give it, too. :)

Friday Morning

 
Eating some popcorn and playing the guitar. I am happy to say that Anthony has (presumably) slept all night for three nights in a row. He was up early this morning, I went into Maria around 5:50 and he was up but he was in excellent spirits. He took my hand and drug me down the stairs, which is a little hairy, as I was carrying Maria and can't see my feet anymore, but we made it. By this time next week, I'll be in the hospital and he'll be a big brother once more over.

End of Wednesday

 
 
 
It's almost our last everything. Like tomorrow is our last Thursday that we will only be four and that Anthony will have only one younger sibling. He was excited in these pictures because we were playing with blocks. He says "block" to me and I say it back, hundreds of times a day. He slept all night last night (we think, we put towels in front of our doors and played music all night in our room so that we don't hear him if he does wake up) and he had a good day today but lately he likes to drop things with a LOUD crash. A lot. I am tense, I admit, but man it is driving me crazy.

Killer

 
He doesn't look like a killer, does he? But he is totally killing us. Three nights in a row, and four out of the last five, that he has been up at around 3:00 in the morning, for hours. And noisy! So that he wakes up Maria, and usually he wakes her up RIGHT before he goes back to sleep, so we can't sleep from like 3:00 on. I tell him all the time that he is not going to have a mother if he keeps doing this, but he cares not. He's feeling better today, anyway, and he had a good day at school so ... that's good. He is currently going around the kitchen and knocking the chairs to the floors, which makes a loud CRACK sound, and is going to give me a heart attack, which will probably ALSO kill me. Either way, I'm a goner. :)

Dancing

 
 
 
He hasn't danced like this in a long time, it's SUPER cute.

Oh boy

 
 
 
Cute. Mike was playing the harmonica and Anthony was getting ready to dance. This pictures make me so happy.

Better

 
 
 
He was sick this morning and stayed home from school and therapy. He woke up at 4:00 and was super noisy but then quiet after like 6:00. Then he was making noise at like 7:30 so I went in and got him, we hung out, and all was well. Then I got him dressed and we went downstairs and gave him a pancake and he threw up all over himself! Then he laid around for the next three hours and then POOF! he was better. I don't know what the deal is, if he just got sick from wolfing down two pieces of pancake, and then it wiped him out or if he had a ... eight hour bug? He seems so much better now, and just ate a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner so maybe he's fine.

Can You Feel the Love?

 
It's rare, for them to play together like this, but they were both really happy.